1st Edition
Doctoral Training and Higher Education in Africa
Drawing on insights from across Africa, this book investigates the discourses and practices that guide doctoral training today.
Higher education is regarded as key for driving development and innovation, creating an informed knowledge base equipped to tackle local and global challenges. For too long external forces defined education in the continent, but now African countries are revitalising higher education, designing doctoral training to fit distinctly African needs and contexts. This book investigates the history, present and future potential of doctoral training on international, regional, national and institutional levels. Bringing together expertise from both research and practice, the book analyses the frameworks and structures of the doctoral phase, and how institutions, supervisors, mentors and young scholars meet the challenges of training in real life. The book covers issues such as access to education, proactive recruitment, funding issues, practitioner expertise, enrolment and drop-out, across a range of countries including South Africa, Mozambique, Ethiopia, Nigeria, Benin, Ghana and Morocco.
This book will be a rich resource for higher education administrators and policy makers, as well as researchers and academics with an interest in higher education in Africa.
Preface 1. Doctoral training and higher education in Africa: Taking stock, R. Sooryamoorthy and Christine Scherer 2. Understanding higher education in Africa from distinct geographies: Reflections on the episteme of doctoral education, Christine Scherer and R. Sooryamoorthy 3. The state of doctoral training in South Africa: Current and emerging practices, Nhlanhla Mkhize 4. Challenges of doctoral programmes in Mozambique: Experiences from the case of Eduardo Mondlane University, Esmeralda Mariano, Carlos J. Manuel, Francisco Januário, Hélder Amâncio and Rehana Capurchande 5. Doctoral education at Addis Ababa University, Ethiopia, Masresha Fetene and Mariamawit Yonathan Yeshak 6. Doctoral training in Nigeria: Re-engineering the existing system for sustainable higher education institutions, Moses Yakubu, Feyi Ademola-Adeoye and Muyiwa Falaiye 7. Understanding doctoral studies in Benin: A case study of the University of Abomey-Calavi, Dodji Amouzouvi 8. Doctoral education in Ghana: Retrospect and prospects, Joseph R.A. Ayee 9. Doctoral education in Morocco: Current status, challenges and future prospects, Yamina El Kirat El Allame, Ismail Kassou and Hajar Anas 10. Moving forward: Revitalising doctoral training in Africa, R. Sooryamoorthy and Christine Scherer
Biography
Christine Scherer is an Academic Coordinator of Early Career & Equal Opportunity in the Cluster of Excellence 'Africa Multiple', University of Bayreuth, Germany.
R. Sooryamoorthy is a Professor of Sociology at the University of KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa. He is also a Research Fellow at the DSI-NRF Centre of Excellence in STI Policy, Stellenbosch University, South Africa.
"The publication of the book on Doctoral training and higher education in Africa could not come at a better time. To my knowledge, this is one of the first comprehensive collections of materials focussing on this topic in Africa. It has many strengths. The book combines various discussions at the policy and programme level with in-depth qualitative themes and appropriate statistical information. The richness of the diversity of doctoral education models across the continent – which reflect the different historical and colonial legacies – makes a major contribution to our understanding of doctoral training in Africa today and specifically the challenges that many governments and universities face in addressing these challenges, such as the quality of doctoral education, the availability of good supervision, the problems associated with high drop-out rates and – very importantly – the fact that we still lack comprehensive and accurate data on many aspects of doctoral training on the continent. As far as the latter point is concerned, the book contains extremely valuable and up to date information on doctoral statistics in selected countries – a challenge that has been highlighted in many previous publications.
The editors of this book should therefore be congratulated with putting together both an impressive collections of new ‘country case studies’ as well as incisive thematic discussions that are transversal across the continent. The book should become compulsory reading for higher education scholars and managers in Africa as well as anyone who has interest in this topic elsewhere in the world."
Johann Mouton, Stellenbosch University, South Africa
"Doctoral Training and Higher Education in Africa is both timely and essential for a transforming and decolonising higher education. A combination of an ageing professoriate and a growing number of younger, newer and less experienced academics entering academia in Africa make this book even more critical. Its deliberateness in offering varying insights on doctoral training from across Africa enables the reader access to unique discourses and practices that guide doctoral support in ways that other similar publications on the subject have not."
Emmanuel M. Mgqwashu, South African Journal of Science
